What Chernobyl Looks Like In 2010

An anonymous reader writes "The editor of Phoronix.com has toured Chernobyl's Zone of Alienation (the 30km zone surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant) to see what the area looks like 24 years after the world's largest nuclear disaster. Many photographs from Chernobyl in 2010 have now been published, showing off the power plant and its RBMK reactors, the town of Pripyat, the town of Chernobyl, and the Red Forest. The 24th anniversary of this deadly nuclear disaster will be on April 26."

Comments

Largest Nuclear Disaster?

[Anonymous Coward]

...really? Does a disaster have to be an accident to be classed as a disaster?

Re:Largest Nuclear Disaster?

[Trepidity]

That's true of the Dresden firebombing also. Actually, it was true of most large-scale WW2 bombings, which were inaccurate and indiscriminate, mostly killing civilians and destroying residential homes. If you want to focus on an atrocity committed against Japan, the Tokyo firebombings were actually considerably worse than the atomic bombings.

Re:Largest Nuclear Disaster?

[ultranova]

In fairness dropping bombs on Japan killed many many more civilians then military people/targets.....massive civilian casualties are not acceptable in any war situation...but then maybe the US things it is?

Massive civilian casualties are unavoidable in any war that involves halfway equal opponents fighting for real. And while atomic bombing of cities might have been going too far, it should be noted that the Japanese had earned it many times over - the Rape of Nanking, the sexual slavery practiced by Japanese military on occupied territories, the human experiments, and oh heck, just read the page.

When debating the justness of atomic bombing Japan, this context should be remembered. They were not innocent victims, but fanatical supporters of a regime every bit as bad as the Nazis - in fact, they were staunch allies of the Nazis. And while it's true that innocents were also harmed in the bombings, it's also true that it was Japan that began the war and refused to surrender despite being beaten beyond any hope of victory, so it can be argued that their blood is on Hirohito's hands.

Re:Largest Nuclear Disaster?

[ffreeloader]

Warning, a rant born of frustration with the perceived world-wide view of Americans.

Yeah, we Americans are so ignorant we've never heard of "friendly fire" deaths during war time. We're shocked, I tell you, shocked, that there were American POW's on Japan's main islands and that some of them were killed. About a dozen GI's died in Japan from a US bomb? Oh, no. We didn't know any of the POW's in Japan ever from any kind weaponry. We thought all POW deaths in Japan were due to starvation. Learning this is enough to make us want to start a full-scale revolution as the US government has taught us that only the bad guys ever kill any of the good guys in any war we've ever been in. The US government is far too secretive to actually publish any facts.

And as far as Americans learning about WWII, well, yeah, all any of us know about that war is what the US government teaches us in its news bulletins. We don't have libraries, a free press, historians, access to WWII government records, curiosity to learn anything on our own, or anything like that. Even if we did none of us would ever use any of those tools as we know the government will tell us everything it wants us to know. It's only foreigners that know anything about American casualties. Here? We're just stupid, ignorant, non-curious rednecks that wait for the government to tell us what we need to know.

Hell, we don't even know that the US military estimated that there would be at least a million American casualties, and up to 10 million Japanese civilian casualties, if we invaded the Japanese homeland using conventional warfare. We've never figured out on our own that, even as horrific as the numbers are from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a lot fewer people, both Japanese and American, died than would have died if a conventional invasion had taken place. But, that's because we Americans are just so stupid and ignorant of any and all facts.

None of us learn on our own, or tell any of our fellow Americans what we've figured out. We all just sit in front of the TV breathing through our mouths while we wait for the next government news bulletin.

OK. End of rant.

What is such big news to you is well-known by many Americans. I knew these things before I graduated from high-school, and my parents knew it decades before I did. I learned about in the late 60's. Lest you think we knew something only those in academia or government knew, my old man was a timber faller most of his life, with no formal schooling beyond the 8th grade, and my mother was a housewife with a couple of years of college education. I say my old man had no formal schooling beyond the 8th grade, but he read voraciously. He educated himself. We, the family as whole, used the public libraries regularly and had a library of a few hundred books at home.

Those approximately dozen GI's killed by an atomic bomb? They are a drop in the bucket to the total number of POW's killed through starvation while held on the Japanese homeland. The number is even insignificant when compared to the number of POW's in Japan who died of starvation on a daily basis. A sad event that they died? Yes, but when considered in the big picture, only a single, very small event, when we will most likely never know the total number of American POW's that died in Japan.
   

Re:Wow, that's pretty ignorant

[Bicx]

During World War II, nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the sixty-five years following the end of World War II — including the Korean and Vietnam Wars — have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock. There are so many in surplus that combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan and United States are able to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to wounded soldiers on the field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_heart

Maybe this means nothing, but I'm guessing the estimated number of casualties from invading the old-fashioned way were what motivated the use of atomic bombs. The Japanese fought tooth and nail even when they were defending a speck of land in the Pacific. How much more so their homeland?